Print Process Descriptions: Printing
Industry Overview: Lithography

Lithographic printing is well suited for printing both text and
illustrations in short to medium length runs of up to 1,000,000
impressions. Typical products printed with offset printing processes
include:

General commercial printing Quick
printing

Newspapers Books

Business Forms Financial and Legal
Documents

Offset Lithographic Printing Process Overview

Lithography is an "offset" printing technique. Ink is not
applied directly from the printing plate (or cylinder) to the substrate as
it is in gravure, flexography and letterpress. Ink is applied to the
printing plate to form the "image" (such as text or artwork to
be printed) and then transferred or "offset to a rubber
"blanket". The image on the blanket is then transferred to the
substrate (typically paper or paperboard) to produce the printed product.

On sheet-fed presses, the substrate is fed into the press one sheet at
a time at a very high speed. Web fed presses print on a continuous roll of
substrate, or web, which is later cut to size. There is a total of 3 types
of offset printing: non-heatset sheetfed, heatset, and non-heatset web
offset. The difference between heatset and non-heatset is primarily
dependent on the type of ink and how it is dried. More Information...